Local GM Héðinn Steingrímsson lead the Reykjavik Open with 4 points out of 4 along with Polish IM Jakub Seemann. Both good good wins today.
Héðinn faced the Serbian women’s national team memberi Teodoru Injac (2434) with black. The Serbian played the Benko-gambit with reversed colors but it seemed white’s play lacked a little mustard. Hedinn was able to get full control and squash white’s play The knight maneuver Nf6-d7-b8-a6 looked interesting and black got full control of the position, which is where Steingrimsson excels.
Jakub Seemann (2451) won in a nice fashion against another IM, Maximillian Lu from USA.
The locals are excited for their players this year and there will be two Icelandic GM’s on the top boards after GM Vignir Vatnar Stefansson managed to beat young Polish talent Patryk Cieslak (2325), a 13 year old who had already drew GM Can and beaten GM Cornette in this tournament.
The game was a fun Catalan battle with white sacrificing a pawn and then we got a flurry of exciting tactics that fizzle out into an endgame with equal material. The young Polish player probably made a mistake with trading rooks and in the resulting endgame the bishop with pawns on both wings felt very much dominating on the board!. Vignir finished things off with a nice zugzwang.
52.b4! with the bishop maneuvrer Ba3-c1-e3-f2-c5 to come, leaving black helpless.
Björn hefur byrjað nokkuð vel!
Outside of Seeman it felt like a bit of an unlucky day for the Poles. Local IM Bjorn Thorfinnsson was in trouble against his Polish GM opponent until he touched his Queen on move 32.
The GM intended 32.Qc4 but immediately saw the flaw…by then it was too late as he had already touched the piece and had no alternative moves with the Queen. The game swung from that moment on with Bjorn taking his chances.
The Polish luck wasn’t much better for IM Jan Klimkowski (2532) who’s flag fell on move 40 against Stefán Bergsson. Klimkowski had accidentally scribbled something on his scoresheet and though he had 41 moves already instead of 40…that was not the case unfortunately!
The position was probably dynamically balanced at that point.
The game of the day probably happened all the way down on board 55! 1900 player Ethan Sanitt found a very nice way to play against his 2347 rated opponent.
15.Nh5!! took advantage of the fact that after 15…Nxh5 and 16.Qd1! the threat of b4 winning the Queen gives black a really hard time.
Whiet followed up with powerful play and then another Thor’s hammer with 28.Rxh7!! a very nice game!
The double day with rounds 5 and 6 looks like it will be pivotal and things will start to clear up after that!
Games with 15-minute delay can be observed here:
- This year there is a record number of streamers with a total of 8 players streaming their games live.
- Anna Cramling streams on Twitch and Youtube with Pia Cramling commentary.
- The Botez sistersAlexandra og Andrea are also live on Twitch and on Youtube with Jon Ludvig Hammer providing commentary.
- WGM Dina Belenkaya is onTwitch and on Youtube with Julesgambit commenting
- Zachary Saine „The Chessnerd“ is onTwitch
- Tallulah Roberts „Lularobs“ is o Twitch
- Anna-Maja Kazarian is on Twitch and on Youtube
- Alexandra Prado is on Twitch
